Search engines provide a powerful tool for locating documents in a large database of documents, such as the documents on the Internet or World Wide Web (WWW), or the documents stored on the computers of an Intranet. The documents are located in response to a search query submitted by a user. A search query may consist of one or more words, terms, keywords, phrases and/or combinations thereof.
Returning search results that closely match, or ideally, that do match a user's interests is a desired characteristic of search engines. This is especially the case in the current environment where there are ever increasing amounts of information. In the absence of such capability, information overload is a real concern: search engines would return too many results to be useful. As a consequence, existing search engines employ a variety of techniques to improve the relevance of search results. Nonetheless, it is still difficult to tailor search results based on a user's profile. There is a need, therefore, for an improved technique for personalizing search engine results.